I'm going to go with the African- they have cooler ears.  
Did you know in the Weismuller Tarzan movies they attached prosthetic ears to Indian elephants to make them look like African elephants?

Quote from: Benoist;439376NO. That is a strawman. That is not at all what is discussed. At first there was discussion about how people played the game and whatnot. The truth of the matter is that AD&D was played in vastly different ways by vastly different people. The way people actually choose to play the game has never been in question, because in the end, they do what the fuck they want. And this had been agreed to by all parties including Doom for pages and pages.

Now if you want to rewind and recover that ground all over the fuck again, be my guest, but it is completely pointless, and irrelevant to my point, which I've been repeated over and over again. You can do what you want at your game table, and I'm not the AD&D police. Do what you want.

What I've been debating from the very start, and my position has not changed one iota on this, I've not shifted any goalposts whatsoever, is that the use of hirelings and henchmen is part of the default assumptions of the AD&D game, that they are an integral part of the corpus of rules meant to be used, not some appendix or option like Psionics are.

Now, by the book, can you have ten spearmen travelling with you at low levels? YES. That's my point.

You know my position Ben but SB is right if you assume that hirelings are a default assumption of the game thne your final sentence should be

Now, by the book, should/will you have ten spearmen travelling with you at low levels?

As you know the 'can' can be applied to 'a dozen hunting dogs' , 'a wagon', '6 pit ponies' etc etc .

If you want to win the point I at least expect commitment

Quote from: Aos;439380I'm going to go with the African- they have cooler ears.  
Did you know in the Weismuller Tarzan movies they attached prosthetic ears to Indian elephants to make them look like African elephants?

Yeah African elephants are a bitch to train.

Quote from: Benoist;439376Now, by the book, can you have ten spearmen travelling with you at low levels? YES. That's my point.

Great, now I don't know if you're joking here, too.

You do agree then, that, while possible, this isn't the baseline for how the game is played?

If so, can you follow up by agreeing with "because people played this game so many different ways, making any assertion about what the baseline was for how the game is played is ridiculous"?

Because that's my point. Sure, stuff is possible, but no way could you count on the players having a group of soldiers with them.

Quote from: jibbajibba;439381Now, by the book, should/will you have ten spearmen travelling with you at low levels?

Now that's a different question.

To answer that question we have to consider the particulars of the adventure itself, what the players are after, how far they have to travel, etc. Are we travelling in the Wilderness or the Dungeon? How thick is the foliage in the Wilderness? Is there a travel time constraint? How about a dungeon? Is it to the PCs' best advantage to explore the dungeon with 10 unexperienced dudes carrying 10 polearms around? How high is the ceiling? What armor are they wearing? Are these guys silent? What's the impact on wandering monsters, and other creatures in the dungeon? Isn't that like ringing the bell for dinner for some of them?

The particulars of the campaign milieu will matter the most, because that's what the actual game is about. Players making decisions on how to venture forth, how they strategize, how they decide to do this or that. Then live or die by the consequences of these actions.

Quote from: Benoist;439379So you're coming back on your agreement that people were playing the game in different ways, that it was never an argument about various game experiences of various people on this board, but that it is an argument about the by-the-book baseline of the game?

Are you arguing about the baseline of the AD&D game, or what people were actually doing with the game twenty years ago?

Choose one option.

I've always said people played the game different ways. Note: 'played". You're conflating 'played' with 'by the book'. I make no assertion about the baseline....but you have. I gues I should have mentioned or quotes or something to indicate that the claim isn't about contents of a book notorious for being filled with vague and contradictory rules.

And I see by your previous post that you've been fundamentally confused this whole time over the claim. Now that you know, we don't have to argue anymore. I agree with you such things are in the rules, but the issue, as you've now finally learned, is how the game is played, not the actual rules, many of which (like leprosy) really didn't come up on a normal basis.

All this time...sorry, I'll try to be more clear next time what the claim was.

Whereas I think Benoist has been very clear on his position - he's saying that hirelings and henchman were an assumed part of the original rules and one of the things the game was designed around.

No one, and I mean no one, has argued that every group that played actually used them.  Like a great many rules of D&D/AD&D, it was completely ignored by a lot of people.  But that doesn't mean the game wasn't built around that concept, because it was.  The Men and Magic book couldn't possibly make it clearer - the game expected you to hire soldiers to go along with your party.

Furthermore - the Men and Magic book actually discusses capturing monsters, breaking their morale, and getting them to join your forces (sort of a stockholm syndrome deal I guess).  It's very clear that one of the original assumptions of how D&D was to be played involved large groups of people moving around the countryside.


Now, the game certainly evolved from that.  D&D kept changing to adapt to how people actually liked to play instead of how the rules assumed they would play.  Few people bothered to play out the end game, so they got rid of it.  Parlaying with monsters was seldom done, so they de-emphasized that.  People preferred dungeon-crawling parties of 4-6 characters, so they adjusted the game to fit that.  Etc.

But none of those changes negates the fact that the game was originally designed for a different style of play - and that style included having a force of people travelling around, not just 4-5 PCs.

Quote from: Aos;439369I have decided that it is now about the logistics of elephant sex.

I don't figure much in the way of logistics is required. You just have to figure out a way to get the elephant to hold still.

Seanchai

Quote from: Doom;439384Great, now I don't know if you're joking here, too.

I am not joking.

Quote from: Doom;439384You do agree then, that, while possible, this isn't the baseline for how the game is played?

Do you understand fucking English?

I don't CARE how people play the game, played the game twenty years ago, you can do whatever the fuck you want at your game table. People are and were playing AD&D in VASTLY different ways. Some of them using henchmen and hirelings, some not.

That's it. The end.

Quote from: Doom;439384If so, can you follow up by agreeing with "because people played this game so many different ways, making any assertion about what the baseline was for how the game is played is ridiculous"?

Because that's my point. Sure, stuff is possible, but no way could you count on the players having a group of soldiers with them.

That's never been your point. I realize that now. Your point all along is to shift the fucking goalpost and use any fucking argument you can to prove that AM was wrong with his 10 spearmen and 1d3 ogres scenario because that bothers you when it comes to shit on 4e yet again.

That's what it is all about, isn't it?

I'm having a reasonable, precise, documented argument about what the baseline of the game is as far as the core books of the AD&D game are concerned. That's always been my argument from the start, and I've never shifted the goalpost on this.

Now the fact that you take me for enough of a moron at this point to fall in this trap yet again  is despicable. Truly, entirely fucking disgustingly dishonest. Now put up or shut up. Do you understand what I'm talking about, or do you want to go for another round of goalpost shifting?

Whatever you do, don't think of elephant sex and goalposts at the same time.

Quote from: Aos;439395Whatever you do, don't think of elephant sex and goalposts at the same time.

LOL I love you dude.

Wait.

That feels wrong writing this about elephant sex and goalposts somehow... :eek:

Quote from: Aos;439395Whatever you do, don't think of elephant sex and goalposts at the same time.

Really? What do you tie your elephant to? Do you even use a ladder?

Seanchai

Quote from: jgants;439390Whereas I think Benoist has been very clear on his position - he's saying that hirelings and henchman were an assumed part of the original rules and one of the things the game was designed around.

No one, and I mean no one, has argued that every group that played actually used them.  Like a great many rules of D&D/AD&D, it was completely ignored by a lot of people.  But that doesn't mean the game wasn't built around that concept, because it was.  The Men and Magic book couldn't possibly make it clearer - the game expected you to hire soldiers to go along with your party.

Furthermore - the Men and Magic book actually discusses capturing monsters, breaking their morale, and getting them to join your forces (sort of a stockholm syndrome deal I guess).  It's very clear that one of the original assumptions of how D&D was to be played involved large groups of people moving around the countryside.


Now, the game certainly evolved from that.  D&D kept changing to adapt to how people actually liked to play instead of how the rules assumed they would play.  Few people bothered to play out the end game, so they got rid of it.  Parlaying with monsters was seldom done, so they de-emphasized that.  People preferred dungeon-crawling parties of 4-6 characters, so they adjusted the game to fit that.  Etc.

But none of those changes negates the fact that the game was originally designed for a different style of play - and that style included having a force of people travelling around, not just 4-5 PCs.

Dude, of course, but you just knocked the toys out of the troll's hand and he can't play his stupid game anymore.

Quote from: Aos;439395Whatever you do, don't think of elephant sex and goalposts at the same time.

Unless they're on their backs, and then it's all about getting it between the uprights.

Quote from: jgants;439390Whereas I think Benoist has been very clear on his position - he's saying that hirelings and henchman were an assumed part of the original rules and one of the things the game was designed around.

No one, and I mean no one, has argued that every group that played actually used them.  Like a great many rules of D&D/AD&D, it was completely ignored by a lot of people.  But that doesn't mean the game wasn't built around that concept, because it was.  The Men and Magic book couldn't possibly make it clearer - the game expected you to hire soldiers to go along with your party.

Furthermore - the Men and Magic book actually discusses capturing monsters, breaking their morale, and getting them to join your forces (sort of a stockholm syndrome deal I guess).  It's very clear that one of the original assumptions of how D&D was to be played involved large groups of people moving around the countryside.

Now, the game certainly evolved from that.  D&D kept changing to adapt to how people actually liked to play instead of how the rules assumed they would play.  Few people bothered to play out the end game, so they got rid of it.  Parlaying with monsters was seldom done, so they de-emphasized that.  People preferred dungeon-crawling parties of 4-6 characters, so they adjusted the game to fit that.  Etc.

But none of those changes negates the fact that the game was originally designed for a different style of play - and that style included having a force of people travelling around, not just 4-5 PCs.

Thank you.